This Is Fine
by Murder-chan
Summary: Everything was always enough.    But nothing was ever enough to satisfy him.  Fon/Femme!Viper
1. Day

He presses his lips to her temple and her hair rustles against his cheeks like folded paper. Pressed into tiny squares so small you could lose them in the palm of your own hand, over and over, never on the same lines.

Battered and soft and formless.

She doesn't wake up, just stirs against him, turning her head, turning away. She doesn't like to be touched any more in sleep than she does when she's awake, because touching means giving up her secrets. He holds her closer. Drinks in her lies.

There's never enough there to satisfy him. He wants to know more, go deeper, but she's always asleep, always dreamless, only awake enough to turn away when he looms too close.

It's enough. It will always be enough to hold her.

* * *

><p>In the morning, it's business as usual. He wakes up, lays in bed with her for as long as he can before he's too restless to stay. She sleeps on as he sits up, tucks her hair behind her ear. Being a child suits her, he supposes. Suits her better than it suited any of the rest of them, and perhaps that was why she was so desperate to become an adult.<p>

It's only a theory, nothing more. It's the most he has, caught between his fingers before the rest of her fled away, somewhere high up where he'd never reach her.

Outside of the sky, outside of the world, never stopping, no matter how many times she stumbled. Always running, too afraid to look back.

The sun is always what pulls him out of these thoughts, drags him back to the reality of _here, alone, bound and not tired of the earth under his feet_. It's enough not to see her soaring over his head. It's enough not to see her turn away again.

Broken, bloody, formless. Unbound by his rules, just like he's unbound by hers. (But she never sees it that way, does she? She needs him to exist in the same chains that cling to her throat, her arms, her legs, and maybe she needs him to be free of the pull and shove of the earth, the wind, the rain.)

When he gets back to the house, there is always coffee ready, and Viper is pouring over the morning newspaper, like knowledge really is power, and power really can fill the gaping holes in her life.

Not him, never him.

He greets her with a smile, a brush of his hand if she seems alert. She acknowledges him with an incline of her head, or a small hum of thought. She's never had breakfast by this point - he always looks in the refrigerator or the cupboards for something to eat (healthy, of course - other than a small stash of chocolate in Viper's drawers, neither of them has much inclination for anything less than practical).

"How did you sleep?" she asks, without fail, and when he looks at her, he wonders if she's been loosing sleep. Because of him, maybe, or because of all the changes in her life, in his life, in their lives. All the growing up everyone has to do, all of a sudden, all over again.

"Fine," he replies, "And you?"

"Fine," is her response. He starts making rice. Partially so he doesn't have to face her when he asks.

"You seem tired, though," he doesn't want her to feel obligated to give him the answer he wants, "If you'd like, I can sleep in another room."

She always hesitates, just a little. Afraid to admit it, or wishing she didn't have to deny it?

" . . . No, this is fine."

It's always enough.

And yet it's never enough to satisfy him.

* * *

><p>Some days, she has missions. She's gone for hours at a time, always seems peevish when she gets back home.<p>

He offers to take her out. There's a really extravagant (and expensive, which he figures she'll appreciate) restaurant he could get them into without too much hassle.

"Mm. No, this is fine."

He sits with her as she reads - something thick and musty and old, with fragile, folded pages (battered and soft and broken and bloody) - and when she falls asleep, her head is always pillowed against his shoulder. He lets her lay there until she starts turning, inward and outward, because he's afraid to disturb her.

Then he picks her up and carries her to the bedroom carefully, like she's water or ice.

Melted and frozen and formless.

Always enough.

More than enough.

_But never_, he thinks, _enough to satisfy._


	2. Night

Note: So. . . I feel like a total dork, but I'm really only posting this because I forgot to put it as complete on the last chapter, and it feels silly to be like OH YEAH WHOOPS, so I figured I'd just go look at Mammon's half of the relationship real quick and drop it here before changing this thing to complete, eheh.

* * *

><p>She has to match up.<p>

No, more than that.

She has to surpass him. She has to surpass everyone - it's nothing personal, and he knows it's not, and somehow that's more infuriating than it should be. He should take it personally. It should matter to him. It shouldn't just be a relentless smile, an unending acceptance of everything that's wrong with her.

In his arms, she feels smothered.

Alone, she feels starved.

And when it comes right down to it, she'd rather starve than rely on anyone.

* * *

><p>Nights are always the same, and she clings to the routine at the same time as she despises it. Wants him awake, at her side; wants to stop waking up to find him curled around her, already asleep.<p>

Can't imagine his smile there to greet her first thing in the morning, first thing in the evening. It's already too jarring to wake up with someone there, in her head, in her room; she can't imagine waking up in the middle of the night to find him still there.

Slipping out of bed; letting minutes, hours drift by while her mind stretches out in the darkness like a monster grown too large for it's cage.

Fon doesn't see her as a monster. The thought makes her cheeks flush more than anything else - even the idea of them having sex, which she's sure hasn't even crossed his mind.

She's not a monster to him. She's not the threat.

She wonders what that leaves her with.

Her heart aches, and if she closes her eyes, she can hear it, pounding out _he loves me, he loves me not, he loves the monster, he loves the mask, he loves me, he loves me not, _so she doesn't.

Forces them to stay open, forces herself to not even blink.

Alone, she feels starved.

With him, she feels smothered in everything she's missed out on.

Frankly, she'd rather starve.

* * *

><p>Sometimes, he has fights - regulated, controlled. He's picked up his life from exactly where it left off, as effortlessly as he breathes. She waits up for him, drinking coffee, even though she hates how bitter it always comes out. Thoughts chase themselves around in circles, flashing still frames up like the afterimage of a flash of lightning, or a room when the lights go out unexpectedly and all at once. Pop, pop, pop.<p>

He has no doubts in her. The truth of that is harder to accept than the threat of losing, he threat of never having a competition in the first place.

If there's no competition, she doesn't know where she belongs (but if there's no competition, she doesn't have to stay tense and angry, on her guard, on her feet).

She'll fall out of time if she lets go of her hand. With the whole weight of her existence on his shoulders, why doesn't he mind? If she can't bear the weight of a hand or a glance, the impression of someone's mind as it rests on her for a moment, and no longer, how can he hold the entirety of her in his arms, and how long can it last?

How long does anything ever last? Sometimes she loses track. Drifts away from the real world like anything in her head will make it more bearable.

Relentlessly, he pulls her back. Says she can leave at any time; never thinks she might not want to.

Even when he falters, he never fails. How can he, how can he?

He smiles when he gets back, pauses in the doorway, and she wonders if he's waiting for her to come to him.

Indignantly, part of her shrieks denial.

Someting beneath that, softer, quieter, wills her to stand up.

He never gives her enough time to summon that much courage; instead, he crosses the room to her, pours himself a cup of coffee as well (without asking, she notes, like she has no reason to refuse. And really, she doesn't.)

"I don't know why we drink that stuff," she says, flat, hollow, and yet his eyes seem to close in something pleasurable, something she can't quite touch yet, not without getting burned, "Neither of us like it. Mu~."

"I'll make tea tomorrow," he promises, "But if Viper made it, I can't find any fault."

She could name all of them for him, but alone, she'll starve. In his arms, she'll be smothered with things she can't let herself be attatched to.

The ultimate technique; the one thing he could never win against.

And somehow, she wants to see him win.

Wants to be smothered, suffocated in all his unrelenting acceptance.


End file.
